Iran Slams New US Sanctions on Its Construction Sector

In a Saturday statement, Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said such moves indicate Washington’s weakness and failure in the domain of diplomacy.

“Unfortunately, the US diplomacy apparatus is incapable of presenting diplomatic and rational initiatives, and only relies on force and economic terrorism,” he added.

“The United States’ imperious diplomacy, which is also used in dealing with other countries and even international and multilateral mechanisms, has turned into a global scourge,” he said.

“Rather than imposing repetitive sanctions and [resorting to] alarmism, which will definitely fail to help them achieve their objectives, the US had better stop getting further bogged down in its self-made illusions and begin to make good on its commitments under the JCPOA again,” the spokesman said.

The US has imposed new sanctions on Iran, targeting the construction sector, despite Washington’s announcement a week ago that it had created a new mechanism to facilitate “permissible trade” with Tehran.

The US State Department issued a fact sheet Thursday, singling out the sale of software used for industrial purposes, raw and semi-finished metals, graphite and coal used in Iran’s construction sector as targets for the new sanctions.

The State Department said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had determined Iran’s construction sector was controlled directly or indirectly by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

The US has previously imposed sanctions on a number of Iranian business companies and networks on the pretext of being tied to the IRGC after blacklisting it as a “terrorist” organization earlier this year. The IRGC is an official branch of the Iranian armed forces.